The Diverse Families bookshelf was created and funded through numerous grants. Due to lack of additional grants and the loss of key personnel, the project has come to an end. We have tremendously enjoyed creating this database and hope that it can help bring readers and books together.

Browse by Race & Culture:

Interracial

Printing is not supported at the primary Gallery Thumbnail page. Please first navigate to a specific Image before printing.

Switch View to Grid View Slideshow

Tripping on the Color Line: Black-White Multiracial Families in a Racially Divided World

Heather M. Dalmage

Through interviews with individuals from black-white multiracial families, together with sociological analysis, this study examines the challenges faced by people living in such families, and explores how their experiences demonstrate the need for rethinking race in America.
Twenty Yawns

Jane Smiley

Featuring lyrical text and beautiful illustrations, this bedtime tale from Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley and Caldecott Honor recipient Lauren Castillo evokes the splashy fun of the beach and the quietude of a moonlit night, with twenty yawns sprinkled in for children to discover and count. As her mom reads a bedtime story, Lucy drifts off. But later, she awakens in a dark, still room, and everything looks mysterious. How will she ever get back to sleep?
Two Dads: A Book About Adoption

Carolyn Robertson

Having two dads is double the fun! Many families are different. This family has two dads. A beautifully illustrated, affirming story of life with two dads, written from the perspective of their adopted child.
Two Mrs. Gibsons

Toyomi Igus

The biracial daughter of an African American father and a Japanese mother fondly recalls growing up with her mother and her father's mother, two very different but equally loving women.
Two Naomis

Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich and Audrey Vernick

Other than their first names, Naomi Marie and Naomi Edith are sure they have nothing in common, and they wouldn't mind keeping it that way. Naomi Marie starts clubs at the library and adores being a big sister. Naomi Edith loves quiet Saturdays and hanging with her best friend in her backyard. And while Naomi Marie's father lives a few blocks away, Naomi Edith wonders how she's supposed to get through each day a whole country apart from her mother. When Naomi Marie's mom and Naomi Edith's dad get serious about dating, each girl tries to cling to the life she knows and loves. Then their parents push them into attending a class together, where they might just have to find a way to work with each other--and maybe even join forces to find new ways to define family.
Unplugged: Ella Gets Her Family Back

Laura Pedersen

Upset that her family is so focused on the screens on their various electronic devices that they no longer talk, laugh, and play games together, Ella takes all of their chargers and small devices.
Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy #1)

Sarah Rees Brennan

Kami Glass is in love with someone she's never met--a boy she's talked to in her head since she was born. This has made her an outsider in the sleepy English town of Sorry-in-the-Vale, but she has learned ways to turn that to her advantage. Her life seems to be in order, until disturbing events begin to occur. There has been screaming in the woods and the manor overlooking the town has lit up for the first time in 10 years. The Lynburn family, who ruled the town a generation ago and who all left without warning, have returned. Now Kami can see that the town she has known and loved all her life is hiding a multitude of secrets--and a murderer. The key to it all just might be the boy in her head. The boy she thought was imaginary is real, and definitely and deliciously dangerous.
Violet

Tania Duprey Stehlik

Violet's mother is red, and her father is blue--so why isn't she red or blue? Why is she purple? Upset and confused, Violet goes to her mother. Using paints, her mother shows her that when you combine red and blue, you get violet!
Wait and See

Tony Bradman

It's Saturday, and Jo has some pocket money to spend. So Jo and her mum go shopping, while Dad stays at home to make lunch for them all. But what should she spend her money on? She'll have to wait and see.
Waiting for May

Janet Morgan Stoeke

A young boy looks forward to the day when a new sister, who will be adopted from China, joins his family.
We Adopted You, Benjamin Koo

Linda Walvoord

Nine-year-old Benjamin Koo Andrews, adopted from Korea as an infant, describes what it's like to grow up adopted from another country.
We Belong Together: A Book About Adoption and Families

Todd Parr

The joy of adoption and bringing families together is presented in this tale.
We Don't Look Like Our Mom and Dad

Harriet Langsam Sobol

A photo-essay on the life of the Levin family, an American couple and their two Korean-born adopted sons, ten-year-old Eric and eleven-year-old Joshua.
Welcome Home, Forever Child: A Celebration of Children Adopted as Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Beyond

Christine Mitchell

A book that genuinely celebrates a young child joining their forever family past infancy. With its touching message of love and reassurance, and whimsical illustrations, Welcome Home, Forever Child is sure to be cherished by children and parents alike. While best suited to children ages two to eight, this gem will undoubtedly be enjoyed by older children as well. Most children's adoption books reflect infant adoptions, and may not be appropriate for the older child who spent their early years in foster care or an orphanage. Welcome Home, Forever Child is a much needed book that social workers and therapists will want to recommend to families who adopted their child past the age of two. The book helps parents reassure children of their permanent place in the new family, and of how much they are wanted and loved. It will also make a very special and meaningful keepsake gift for a child upon joining his or her new family, upon finalizing the adoption, or upon the anniversary of either event.
Welcome Home Little Baby

Lisa Harper

Based on a poem the author wrote immediately after the arrival of their first adopted child, this story is perfect for anyone who has adopted or is going to adopt.
We See the Moon

Carrie A. Kitze

A story written from the children's perspective, asking the questions that dwell in their hearts about their birthparents. It helps children use the moon as a private tool to connect with a family that is always with them in their hearts.
We Wanted You

Liz Rosenberg

Parents tell how they waited and prepared for the child that they wanted so much.
What are You?: Voices of Mixed-Race Young People

Pearl Fuyo Gaskins

Many young people of racially mixed backgrounds discuss their feelings about family relationships, prejudice, dating, personal identity, and other issues.
Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?

Kathleen Collins

Now available in Ecco's Art of the Story series: a never-before-published collection of stories from a brilliant yet little known African American artist and filmmaker-a contemporary of revered writers including Toni Cade Bambara, Laurie Colwin, Ann Beattie, Amy Hempel, and Grace Paley-whose prescient work has recently resurfaced to wide acclaim. Humorous, poignant, perceptive, and full of grace, Kathleen Collins's stories masterfully blend the quotidian and the profound in a personal, intimate way, exploring deep, far-reaching issues-race, gender, family, and sexuality-that shape the ordinary moments in our lives. In "The Uncle," a young girl who idolizes her handsome uncle and his beautiful wife makes a haunting discovery about their lives. In "Only Once," a woman reminisces about her charming daredevil of a lover and his ultimate-and final-act of foolishness. Collins's work seamlessly integrates the African-American experience in her characters' lives, creating rich, devastatingly familiar, full-bodied men, women, and children who transcend the symbolic, penetrating both the reader's head and heart. Both contemporary and timeless, Whatever Happened to Interracial Love' is a major addition to the literary canon, and is sure to earn Kathleen Collins the widespread recognition she is long overdue.
What's In There? All About Before You Were Born

Robie H. Harris

Follows the adventures of young Gus and Nellie, who watch their mother's pregnancy and anticipate the arrival of a new sibling while learning engaging facts about how unborn babies develop.
When Aidan Became a Brother

Kyle Lukoff

When Aidan was born, everyone thought he was a girl. His parents gave him a pretty name, his room looked like a girl's room, and he wore clothes that other girls liked wearing. After he realized he was a trans boy, Aidan and his parents fixed the parts of his life that didn't fit anymore, and he settled happily into his new life. Then Mom and Dad announce that they're going to have another baby, and Aidan wants to do everything he can to make things right for his new sibling from the beginning--from choosing the perfect name to creating a beautiful room to picking out the cutest onesie. But what does "making things right" actually mean? And what happens if he messes up? With a little help, Aidan comes to understand that mistakes can be fixed with honesty and communication, and that he already knows the most important thing about being a big brother: how to love with his whole self.
When I Grow Up...

Paula Vasquez

All of the children in Miss Ester's class know what they want to be like when they grow up: their families! And each family is special and unique. Readers will be surprised and delighted to find that Johnny the duckling's mom and dad have curly tails, stubby noses, and hooves. Johnny and his classmates make it easy for parents to show their little ones that there are many types of families, and they're all made of love.
When the Black Girl Sings

Bil Wright

Adopted by white parents and sent to an exclusive Connecticut girls' school where she is the only black student, fourteen-year-old Lahni Schuler feels like an outcast, particularly when her parents separate, but after attending a local church where she hears gospel music for the first time, she finds her voice.
Where's Lenny

Ken Wilson-Max

Lenny plays hide-and seek with daddy--but Daddy can't find him anywhere. Where's Lenny?
Whoa Baby, Whoa!

Grace Nichols

A baby finally finds something to do that does not make everyone in the family tell him "No."